The Big Picture
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Cuckoo
delves into family dynamics and women’s rights amidst a creepy plot with a devilish villain played by Dan Stevens. - The journey of Hunter Schafer’s Gretchen leads to a newfound sense of belonging through relationships and self-discovery.
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Cuckoo
‘s finale showcases the power of sisterhood and overcoming patriarchal control in a thrilling climax as Gretchen, Alma, and Ed escape the resort to start a new life in Paris.
Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo is a creepy, body horror movie set in the Bavarian Alps in Germany. The film explores a plethora of themes from family dynamics and romantic relationships, to the fight for women’s reproductive rights amidst a devilishly creepy villain known as Herr König. The prevalent themes in the plot — about a mad scientist who uses “The Hooded Woman” to capture women to breed an ancient, dangerous lifeform (known as “The cuckoo”) through their bodies and the fight to stop him — might get lost, confusing, or muddled in an already tense and frightening movie. So, let’s filter through them to illuminate that ending! What does the finale mean, where are our protagonists at the end, and what do their futures promise?
What Is ‘Cuckoo’ About?
At the beginning of the film, 17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) reluctantly moves with her dad Luis (Marton Csokas), stepmom Beth (Jessica Henwick), and half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu), who is mute, to a new home in the Bavarian Alps, at a resort typically used by hikers or honeymooners. Gretchen finds her sister’s inability to speak annoying and she doesn’t get along with her dad’s new wife. Gretchen doesn’t fit into this new family, she doesn’t want to be in Germany, and even in this new family unit, she appears to be an outcast. Instead of riding with her family towards their new home, Gretchen sits cramped in the cabin of the moving van that follows the family car through the Alps. She wants to be as far away from them as possible.
This reluctance towards accepting a new family dynamic could be seen as just a typically angsty, teenage reaction to divorce, if not for what becomes clear throughout the film. Gretchen is repeatedly seen calling her mother on her phone and leaving voice messages, essentially telling the audience how she feels and where her state of mind as her situation worsens. These messages are given more relevance as her dad gradually distances himself from Gretchen, eventually revealing that he sold the home she wants to return to. A small box arrives at the resort for Gretchen with her possessions and memories from the house. Among the trinkets and memories is the cassette tape from the answering machine Gretchen’s been calling and leaving messages on. The messages she’s been sending to her mother haven’t been received, because her mother has been dead this entire time, and Gretchen has not been able to move on from her grief. Without her mother alive, and her straining relationship with her father, Gretchen’s sense of family is lost.
Hunter Schafer’s Gretchen Finds a New Romance at the Resort
Gretchen’s relationship with her family doesn’t improve much when Alma becomes overtaken by a hypnotic noise (the calling of the titular cuckoo, i.e. The Hooded Woman), which consumes her senses and bodily actions, overpowering her to lash out against Gretchen — slashing her across the face with her hand. Luis and Beth blame Gretchen for Alma’s apparent seizure, and so to keep her occupied (and as far away from them as possible), she’s given a job at the front counter of the sleepy resort. Here, Gretchen awkwardly makes friends with an employee, Trixie (Greta Fernández), and flirts with one of the guests, Ed (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey), who suggests she come to Paris with her. Gretchen’s sense of belonging is beginning to form by this attraction.
With the introduction of Ed and their brief romantic fling (making out in the back), Gretchen can visualize an escape from her stifled existence. She can imagine being free from her family to start a new life with this mysterious, older woman. It’s an alluring prospect, one that Gretchen takes advantage of by stealing all the cash in the register, packing her things, and driving away with Ed. When The Hooded Woman stops their escape and causes them to crash in the woods, all of Gretchen’s plans for a new life are shattered. Ed disappears, and her family distrusts her even more.
Who Is the Hooded Woman and How Is She Connected to Herr König?
Who is the Hooded Woman who appears throughout the film to antagonize Gretchen? Wearing sunglasses with red Terminator eye lights pulsing through, and a 1950’s-style hooded rain jacket, The Hooded Woman has no name given in the film other than the description of her wardrobe. However, she’s called “the cuckoo,” because of what’s been implanted inside her (the parasitic brood, from an unknown place and time, that spreads its seeds like the cuckoo bird — who lays its eggs in the nests of other birds to overtake their brood). After Gretchen is rescued and recovers in the hospital, Herr König (Dan Stevens) appears beside her, quiet but malevolently insisting that she keep her distance from Alma. Herr König, a seemingly affable man runs the resort and has a past with Gretchen’s parents; he’s employed her father to design new buildings for their resort. König’s purpose in the film is somewhat benign, although not without suspicions (he seems peculiarly interested in Alma and her well-being), and throughout the first act of the film, he’s understanding towards Gretchen’s emotional intelligence (he’s the one who gives her the job at the resort, by the way). But it’s this trust that ultimately is turned on its head when König’s true, nefarious motivations are revealed.
The strange happenings — The Hooded Woman in the night that chases after and follows Gretchen, the odd shrieks that hold control over people’s perception of time, the guests staying at the lover’s getaway becoming ill and disappearing — are revealed to be controlled and implemented by König and his assistants. He’s a mad scientist, and the resort is his testing lab. In his experiments, König holds young women captive (The Hooded Woman and a newer, younger woman who has had the cuckoo transferred to her, as well) and uses their bodies to transmit an ancient being from one host to the next.
The women are infected with “the cuckoo” via a clear liquid and are inseminated, thus losing ownership of their own bodies at this hijacking. The purpose of this, König explains like a Bond villain revealing his plans for world domination, is to keep the strain of evil alive, and thus wield power over his female victims’ reproductive rights. There’s no clear reason why König is preserving this parasitic brood, but it seems to be his life’s purpose as a, in his words, “preservationist.” The origins of the cuckoo and The Hooded Woman are a mystery, nor are we privy to König’s backstory into how he came to control this iteration of evil manipulation. We just know what König represents a horrific truth that unfortunately still exists the world over: men seeking power over the autonomy of women’s bodies will do anything to maintain power and control.
There is some evidence of hope in the character of Henry (Jan Bluthardt), a detective who enlists the help of Gretchen to capture the Hooded Woman and stop König. Henry appears to be a man who can be trusted because he tells Gretchen he will protect her from danger, something her own father doesn’t even seem to acknowledge. Henry’s convictions are solidified further when it’s made known that his wife was a victim of König’s dastardly ways many years ago, and now he seeks revenge. Even still, faith in Henry’s motivations falls apart when it comes to the protection of Alma.
How Does ‘Cuckoo’ End?
Herr König’s interest in Alma’s wellbeing is because she’s a part of his preservation experiment with maintaining the lineage and survival of the cuckoo. When Gretchen’s parents first came to the resort eight years prior, they conceived Alma by way of the insemination process begun with the Hooded Woman. So in effect, Alma is the progeny of the cuckoo. It’s only when she arrived at the resort and came into contact with the calling of the cuckoo (or rather the cuckoo inside being awoken) that her powers were activated.
All the themes coalesce in the final act of the movie. Gretchen, who once dismissed her sister, knows how much Alma cares for her. When Gretchen listened to the cassette tape of her recordings with her deceased mother, there was a final message, a text-to-voice message from Alma to Gretchen’s mother. Alma (not aware of Gretchen’s mother’s death) left a message for the mother to come visit — she can hear Gretchen crying through the walls and she’s concerned for her. It’s this revelation that makes Gretchen emotionally closer to her sister and want to save her from the men trying to both control her body and destroy her.
In an effort to save Alma, Gretchen kills the Hooded Woman in a chase through the lab. She finds Alma and they attempt to escape. However, Herr König and Henry both want control over Alma. König wants her because now she’s the only cuckoo remaining, and Henry wants to kill Alma to stop the cuckoo from living. Both men want decisive control over the fate of this young woman. It’s only when Alma (supported by Gretchen’s love and faith in her) decides to use her powers against the men, that König and Henry end up killing each other in a bloody gun battle. Alma becomes autonomous from the decisions of men who want to manipulate her body. She is now in total control.
Gretchen finds Ed still alive and unharmed by any cuckoo experiments and they, along with Alma, escape into a car and drive away from the resort. They’re going to Paris to start a new life. Gretchen has the love of Ed, Alma has the power of the cuckoo within her to use whenever she wants and together they’ve formed a makeshift family. In a situation where every female character’s decisions were beholden to the overbearing, venomous control of evil men, they used sisterhood and family to thwart and defeat a patriarchal demon.
Cuckoo is currently screening in theaters.
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